Cold Blooded (25 page)

As he slid a pair of reading glasses onto his nose, James flipped open the book, scanned the chapters and, thumbing quickly through the pages, found what he was looking for.

"Here we go." He pushed the open book across the desk.

The color drained from his half-brother's face. "Tortured by being strapped to a spiked wheel."

"That was the idea, yes."

"Jesus," Bentz whispered, his eyes scanning the page.

"Her bonds were miraculously loosened and the spikes flew off to kill the onlookers."

"And when that didn't work she was beheaded."

Bentz nodded slowly, his gaze glued to the text.

"If s said that her blood flowed white. Like milk." James scratched his neck beneath his clerical collar. "And all because she committed the sin of converting people to Christianity."

Folding his hands, James leaned over his desk. "If you have a killer who is copying the murders of the saints, you're going to be very busy, I'm afraid. And he won't be satisfied killing only women. Men and children as well will be at risk. There are hundreds of saints ... thousands."

Inwardly James shivered. He skewered his half-brother's gaze with his own. "This is unthinkable."

"A lot of unthinkable acts have been performed in the name of God."

"I know."

Bentz flipped through the tome, the lines of his face deepening as he
scanned the thin pages. "Do you mind if I take this? I'll return it."
"If it will help. Of course."
"Thanks. Now, I've got something else I hope you can interpret."
"I'll try."
Reaching into his pocket, Bentz withdrew copies of the notes Olivia had

taken after her nightmares or "visions"
surrounding the woman chained within a crypt. "Does this mean anything

to you?" he asked. "Could those notations have anything to do with one
of these saints?" He tapped the book with two fingers.
James adjusted his reading glasses. At first the letters and symbols

meant nothing. "Is there anything else you can tell me about it?" he

asked, studying the symbols.
"Yeah ... if it's connected with a saint, the feast day would have been
in summer, I think. Probably August.

Maybe July."
"Philomena," James said as the letters began to connect.
He picked up the book again, but he knew before he thumbed through the

pages what he would find.' ', PAXTE, CUMFI. It's Latin, but mixed up.

Supposedly these words were found inscribed in red on the tomb of Saint
Philomena.
When the tiled letters were changed around a little bit, the message

read, ' tecum, Filumena,' or ' be with you, Philomena.' " "What about

the symbols?" Bentz asked.
"On the tiles of the tomb." James glanced down at the text. "I suppose
they're open to interpretation, but the tomb of this Roman girl was

found in 1802. It's thought that aside from the letters, the inscriptions on the tiles were of a lily, a palm, the arrows, anchor and a scourge, see here--" he pointed to the crude drawings. ' "s the lily and it means she was a virgin. The palm is symbolic of being a martyr and the weapons depict the tortures she went through."

He pointed to the arrows. "Even these squiggly lines over the arrow are supposed to represent fire, but of course, that's speculation as nothing is recorded about her. She was also found with a vial of dried blood, presumably hers, within the tomb."

"Her own blood? Why?"

James shrugged. "That's the mystery of Philomena. Not much is known about her or who she was. Though she's got a loyal following, the Church has wavered, even suppressing her feast day in the early sixties, I think. She's gained favor again, at least with some of her supplicants, those who invoke her name in every sort of need." "She performs miracles?" Bentz asked, obviously skeptical.

"That's right." James handed the pages to his halfbrother.

"She was recognized as a saint solely upon her powerful intercession."

"You mean she grants prayer requests?"

"Yes."

"Has she ever granted one for you?" Bentz asked as he stood and folded the well-worn piece of paper into his pocket.

"I've yet to ask." Again James slid the book across the desk. "Anything else I can do for you?"

"Yeah." Bentz started for the door. "Pray."

"I always do."

That stopped him cold. He looked over his shoulder and pinned James in his harsh glare. "I'm okay, James. I don't need your prayers except about this case."

"Old habits die hard." James rounded the desk. "Let me know if there's anything else I can do."

"I will." Bentz's hand was on the doorknob.

"And would you please tell Kristi that ... that I wish her well?"

Every muscle in his half-brother's body tensed. He rounded. "What good would that do? She knows the truth, that you're more than her uncle, okay. She gets it. Let her deal." He turned then and torment shadowed the anger that snapped in his eyes.

"It's hard enough for a kid to learn that the man who raised her isn't her father. Then add to it that the real father turns out to be an uncle who just happens to also be a priest. That's a helluva lot for a kid to take, don't you think?"

"Yes ... I know ... I mean ... " The old anguish tore at James's soul.

"I've told you I'm sorry. I've talked to God. If I could do everything over ... "

"What? You wouldn't have gotten it on with my wife?

You wouldn't have gotten her pregnant? Kristi wouldn't have been born?"

Bent/ raged, men stopped suddenly and the cords in his neck became less visible. "Forget it, James.

And next time, let me do the praying. How about that? I'll pray for you, okay? I think you need it a helluva lot more than I do."

With that he swung out of the door, nearly knocking over Wanda who just happened to be hovering nearby. James let out his breath, made the sign of the cross and sent up another prayer for forgiveness ... as he had each and every day for the past eighteen years.

But his half-brother was right. Had he not been seduced by Jennifer, Kristi would never have been born and that, in and of itself, would have been the greatest sin of all. He'd been a seminary student when he'd met his brother's wife.

He'd let down his guard one weekend during a time Rick and Jennifer had briefly separated. He could still remember the taste of saltwater on her skin, the feel of hot sand against his back on the beach near Newport ... Those memories had been with him for years and when she'd offered herself again, years later, when her marriage was on the rocks and she could no longer take being tied to a cop who'd mistakenly shot a kid close to Kristi's age and had begun pouring himself into a bottle ... James had tried to console her and had ended up making love to her in the marriage bed she shared with his half brother.

Unfortunately Rick had chosen that afternoon to stop by the house.

Within a month Jennifer Nichols Bentz was dead. Had she killed herself?

James suspected as much, though her death was ruled an accident. But the antidepressants, the booze, the clear weather conditions didn't explain why her car left the road and slammed into a tree.

James's throat thickened. No wonder his brother hated him. Kristi was right. He was a hypocrite who should have walked away from the priesthood. Instead he'd spent the past eighteen years begging God's forgiveness.

But you couldn't leave her alone, could you? You couldn't resist. And she died. God punished not only you, but your brother and your daughter.

There was a light tap at the door and he looked up, expecting that Bentz had left something and was returning for it Instead, Monsignor O'Hara swept in. He was a tall, graceful man, soft-spoken, but with a bearing that set him apart from his peers. Wearing a plain alb, he shut the door softly behind him. "Is everything all right?"

What a joke. Nothing was right. "I suppose." "Mrs. Landry said the police were here."

Of course. Wanda Landry had felt compelled to spread the word. She was a gossip; a pious gossip, but a gossip nonetheless and she seemed to take particular delight in the troubles of others. James suspected that she was involved in the prayer chain primarily to learn of bad news and pass it along. "It was only one policeman who happens to be my half-brother."

"Oh." The monsignor frowned thoughtfully. "I didn't know you had any

family around."

"We're not close." And whose fault is that?

"Maybe that will change," the monsignor said.

"Perhaps." James didn't elaborate. He figured that his family was his business. Bentz's father had been a policeman killed in the line of duty. His wife had married his partner, who had treated Rick as if he were his own flesh and blood.

However, he'd left the boy with the surname of his biological father--a gift and, perhaps, in retrospect a burden.

"So there's no trouble?" O'Hara asked, a guarded smile stretching across his strong jaw. Though in his fifties, Monsignor O'Hara worked out regularly. There wasn't an ounce of fat on the older man's body. He seemed a sincere, if distant soul though James realized that he knew little of the man with whom he'd been partnered for several years.

"No trouble."

"Good ... good ... I'll see you later." As if he really didn't want to hear any bad news, the monsignor lifted a hand and hurried out of the office to leave James alone, sitting at the desk in the green glow of a banker's lamp as the notes from a lonely cello wafted through the empty office. He tried to pray and found no solace in speaking with God.

Walking to the window he looked out at the dark, gloomy skies. The wind was beginning to pick up and a branch from the magnolia tree near the front of the building was banging against the church again, as if God were rapping on the walls, reminding him that He was watching. He knew.

James leaned his forehead against the glass and tried to conjure up the monster stalking the streets of the city. A man killing women in the ways some of the saints were martyred. Ugly. Twisted. Who would think of

such a thing?

And, for God's sake, why?

He suspected there was a lot more his half-brother hadn't told him; he

could feel it as he stared into the dark night.

And the threat was extreme for Rick to have sought him out.

Or perhaps God was trying to talk to James. There was a chance that God had directed his half-brother to the church, to him, to show James that he was needed. He walked to the bookcase again and found another, well-worn volume on the saints. In this one the pages were so thin they were nearly translucent.

Resting his hips on the edge of the desk, he shuffled through the pages and caught glimpses, images of the portraits of the saints. Painted by the masters, the women who had been canonized appeared virtuous, kind and flawlessly beautiful, the kind of woman any man would want ... Like Olivia Benchet.

Why couldn't he put that woman out of his mind? A dozen times over since their last meeting, James had thought of her, evoking her image and entertaining thoughts decidedly unworthy of his calling.

He looked down at the book again. Olivia was as beautiful as any of the pictures in this ancient tome.

Stop it!

He snapped the book closed but even as he did, he wondered if he would ever see Olivia again. His pulse quickened at the thought of another encounter no matter how brief.

She was innocence tangled with sweet, sinful seduction, one of the few women who were able to breach the solid and sanctimonious wall he'd constructed around his heart.

He knew he was good-looking. He'd been told often enough. The jokes that he was wasting his inherent masculinity didn't go unnoticed; some women had speculated that he was gay. Then there were the others, the vulnerable. In his role of advisor and counselor to those in pain or grieving, he'd been given ample opportunity to break his vows of celibacy. Young widows looking for strength and comfort, women who'd been rejected by boyfriends and spouses and were searching for someone to prove they were still attractive, other pushy little flirts who just looked upon him as a challenge, a notch in their garter belts. At each door of temptation, he'd stopped short, steadfastly resisting. Even when the temptation of the flesh had been so strong that he'd spent hours alternately dousing himself with cold water and kneeling on the cold stones of his altar, praying for the strength to resist the invitations thrown his way. In each and every case he'd succeeded.

Except with his brother's wife.

Even now, he closed his eyes and felt shame.

Until a few days ago he'd been prideful enough to think that he could no longer be swayed from his vows of celibacy.

And God had proved once again that he was a weak and frail man.

For that was before he'd looked into the liquid-gold eyes of Olivia Benchet. And now, he feared, he was doomed to sin again.

Chapter Twenty-two.

"... that's right, Saint Philomena. August eleventh," Bentz was saying into the receiver of his cell phone. "See if any coeds from any of the universities were reported missing about that time." God, he hated to think about the connection between the women. College girls. Like Kristi.

And she wasn't that far away. It scared the piss out of him.

"I've already started looking," Montoya reported, his voice as clear as if he were sitting in the passenger seat of the Jeep instead of on his own cell phone. "But you really think this is tied into feast days?"

"I'd bet my dad's service revolver on it."

"Damn."

Bentz had spent the last three hours, ever since leaving St. Luke's, running down leads in the Stephanie Keller murder.

Now, he was driving into the Quarter. "I talked with the mechanic who saw Stephanie Jane Keller after the boyfriend dropped her off. He was clocked in until nine--they work late--and was home by nine-fifteen to be with the wife and kids. He remembers nothing except that she was in a hurry to get to class. But she never made it, according to her professor. So far, the mechanic was the last one to see her alive."

"Shit." Bentz's exact thought. "I've called some of her friends.

None of ' think she was going anywhere but to class and that gels as her books and notebook for that class weren't in her car or her apartment. I talked to the team that went through her things. Her friends check out, too, and the last guy she was involved with before Townsend was a guy she worked with, but they broke up because he got transferred to Boston.